We tried making this dip last night and turned out awful. Little or no taste. My wife thinks it is because she used fresh spinach and cooked it before putting in the dip. I tried adding salt and cayenne pepper to little effect. Here is the recipe;

No I don't think the spinach was the culprit - or the missing water chestnuts, either!

If you look at the quantity of 'spice' or flavor in the recipe, there's really very little - an eighth of a tsp of hot pepper sauce? That's hardly worth the mention! Same for 1/2 tsp of garlic powder/salt.

The cream cheese tends to 'bland' things out, as does any dairy product; and the spinach is very good at masking flavors, too, so when you think of adding flavors, really add a 'punch' to have any effect.

I'd try maybe using fresh garlic, and go with the cayenne - maybe 1/2 tsp. instead of the hot sauce; add a dash or two of Worchestershire, a little lemon juice, at least 1 tsp. of salt, and a generous amount of black pepper.

I added at least 3 cloves of minced garlic. I added at least one tsp. of salt prolly more. I used a bunch of cayenne it covered the surface, mixed it up and then I added more cayenne. Any more suggestions?

A cream cheese based dip to me is best heated. You might want to try next time 1/2 cup sour cream and 1/2 cup mayo - just to see if it makes a difference. I'll do some more thinking on this in the meantime.

Erik - I used hearts of palm along with artichokes one time and it turned out were really good - I also topped it with pine nuts before baking then when it came out topped with a tomato concassé - it was excellent!

Here's the spinach dip that I always make.
It seems to have a lot of flavor and my friends LOVE it.

Spinach Artichoke Dip

This is my all time favorite artichoke dip. It's thicker and heavier than your usual spinach dips but I think that's what gives it character. It never fails that this is the first thing to disappear and I always get asked for the recipe.

jp - the best spinach dip I made started out as artichoke dip - it started with 1 cup mayo, 1 cup green can parmesan cheese, 1 can artichokes, garlic powder and tobasco.......then I added 2 packages of spinach (though I'm sure 1 would be enough - I just think spinach dip should have lots of spinach in it! lol), 1 blockof cream cheese, half and half to help with the consistancy, 1 can chopped hearts of palm, more garlic and hot sauce (Chalula is now my favorite - I think that's the right name) Parmesan cheese and jack cheese. I placed everything in a pretty wide shallow pan (it was the pan from my chafing dish) and I topped the whole thing with pine nuts. Once it came out of the oven I topped that with tomatoes concaisse - it was REALLY good! I might have even added some more mayo - can't really remember anymore.